


but they say love is a virtue

by maximoffs



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aesir Loki, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Jotun Thor, Loki and Thor Are Not Related, M/M, Slight Age Difference, Slow Burn, mutual pining but like -- stubbornly and unwilling because of who they are as people, secret treasonous plots, very tentative romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24720961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximoffs/pseuds/maximoffs
Summary: “I am sorry to hear that,” Thor says. “I would have liked to be married to a powerful witch.”“No one wants to marry a witch, Thor.”*(Hela arranges a marriage between her little brother and the prince of Jotunheim to cement peace between the two realms. Or so she says.)
Relationships: Loki & Thor (Marvel), Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 277





	but they say love is a virtue

The prince’s life— as all the lives of the princes who had come before him— has been predetermined long before he has any concept of what it means to rule a kingdom, or wear a crown, or fall in love. His father the King has made every arrangement regarding his only son’s education, interests, allowances, and coronation. His father the King has also made a promise, long before Loki’s birth, that his firstborn son’s primary purpose will be to unite the kingdoms of Asgard and Jotunheim lest their peace agreements are torn up, forgotten. 

King Odin is not the worst of men, all things considered, although he is not a particularly good father, either. Instead he is easy to anger and slow to forgive; he withholds his affection and he often speaks in impossible, aggravating riddles. As he grows older he defers too often to his daughter Hela, who neither understands diplomacy nor cares for her people. She is unmistakably unfit for the role of regent, but Loki is still too young, only thirteen, while the King’s crown grows heavier every day. He becomes more and more difficult to please, handing duties away to whoever will take them, ignoring Loki’s pleas to take better care, and to remember that Asgard depends on him, and to be wary of Hela’s influence. These are never the correct things to say to a king who no longer wishes to be king. 

As a boy, Loki is at turns quiet and serious, restless and mischievous. He does not have many friends, because he is a strange boy, nothing like the reckless little warrior his father had been expecting, but he has guards and he has attendants, and he has the Watcher, who all humor his tricks and play games with him to make him laugh. The difference in age between him and his sister is too great for them to grow up playing; though sometimes she humors him with a story and sometimes she lets him brush her long, black hair which feels like rich silk between his tiny fingers. He loves those moments the most, in the private luxury of Hela’s room, because then he is important enough to be let in on her secrets. 

It is not the same as having friends. Loki does not know this, however; he does not know to let it bother him. Eventually there is a little girl who comes to the palace; she is the daughter of a highborn lady though she wishes only to be a shieldmaiden, and to protect the throne. She is strange too, so Loki befriends her, and he is satisfied.

It is a fine life, as all prince’s lives are fine, filled with luxury and privilege. Loki will never want for anything physical, he knows. But he is lonely at the heart of it, and he worries sometimes, in the night, that there is an absence in him that nothing can ever fill. Loki loves his father but he does not love guessing at the roulette wheel where his emotions will land on a particular day. Loki loves his father, and he loves his kingdom, but often he feels like a snake chained to a golden grate, choked and keyless. 

Loki is just shy of his nineteenth birthday when Odin dies. He is to be king in three years. His sister Hela holds the throne in the interim, her darkness seeping into everything she touches. Once, Loki loved her the way he loved his father, but year after year of watching Hela’s influence over the King has soured his affections. He still has faith that he will ascend to his birthright someday, that she will relinquish her power as Odin had meant for her to do. He is still young enough to hold onto childhood naivety, an inherent trust for the family that raised him, and the hope that his sister does love him despite the black hole that poses as her heart. 

So when the day comes that he is informed of his future, he tries to take it with grace. 

The Queen Regent calls him to the throne room, and Loki bows low.

“Sister,” he says.

“Brother,” Hela says, though her smile does not reach her eyes. “It is time you marry.” She says it just like this, with no preamble. Loki feels suddenly unsteady on his feet.

“Why, Hela?” he asks. He is not always so obstinate, but he feels there is some merit in asking about this thing that will change the course of his life forever. Why now? 

Hela is hardly ever forthcoming however today it is important to tell Loki the truth, so that he will be prepared, and arrange his behavior accordingly. 

“At its best, our alliance with Jotunheim is fraught with suspicion and skepticism. At worst, they are planning an attack on Asgard as we speak.”

Loki frowns. “Do you really think they would betray us like that?”

“I think they are a cold people with a dying empire. It will make them desperate, if it hasn’t already.” 

Loki nods. How can he argue with that?

“You will marry, then. We will give them the illusion of a foot in Asgard, and they will be satisfied.” 

“Will something so little satisfy them, Sister?”

“Laufey has three sons, Loki. Only one of them will succeed as King, and he will have to find positions for the other two. Do you think so little of the Asgardian throne?”

“I am to rule Asgard,” Loki says. The words feel more like lead and less like truth. He tries to remind himself that his father’s wishes cannot be overturned so easily, that Hela is only a placeholder for him.

“Of course,” Hela says, and there’s that cold smile again. “You are to rule Asgard. You will do it with Laufey’s middle child at your side, and you will let him believe he has some power over you because you are smart, and you are cunning, and you value this kingdom over your pride.”

Loki bites his tongue, and listens. 

“The retinue from Jotunheim arrives tomorrow morning.” Loki flinches— for some reason he did not think it would happen so soon. “The ceremony will be quick but the celebration will last days, as is customary. You will have the opportunity to get to know Thor then.”

“Thor,” Loki repeats, trying to familiarize his mouth with the word, wanting it to mean something. It doesn’t, of course. It doesn’t mean anything at all. “Yes, Sister,” he says, hating the subservience in his voice. He thinks he could have been a fighter, in another life— he has such _urges_ to kick and scream and plot in the middle of the night, when all others have gone to bed. Had Odin’s eye not been on him all those years, sizing up and down his every move, he could have built a more respectful position for himself. Loki knows now that his true talents have been stunted as Odin’s son, as Hela’s little brother. Knows he can never use them to their full potential. 

Hela nods. “You may go,” she says, and it is not until Loki is in the safety of his personal chambers that he wills all the vases to break. 

***

The ceremony is unmemorable. Laufey and the Jotun retinue come early in the morning as promised and are seen to the guest apartments to rest briefly. They are offered food and drink and they refuse it all; Loki hears that they refuse to touch anything until the ceremony is complete. Such little trust— and even he isn’t sure he can blame them. There have been rumors coming out of the palace for years, some fake and some with credit, all carefully planted by those who wish to distinguish Asgard as the height of power and glory. 

They do not meet before the ceremony. Loki is seated first, in front of the priestess who will perform the marriage rites. Hela is somewhere in the Great Hall, too, but Loki does not like to think of how his back is to her. The Jotuns file in shortly after, Laufey at the front, and directly behind him the largest man Loki has ever seen. He is naked from the waist up, except for a massive fur he has wrapped around his shoulders— something he unceremoniously throws off now. 

So then he is naked. From his waist up. 

And very blue, and so tall Loki has to crane his head from where he is sitting. His blonde hair is braided— almost haphazardly— and two braids hang loose from his beard. He is not, Loki recognizes instantly, a friendly man. He is, instead, a very dangerous one. Loki directs his eyes forward again, somewhere at the priestess’s midsection, though they feel blurred and hazy. It is not ingrained in his nature to be afraid so instead he is angry; he closes his hands in fists in his lap. He will not rage here, in front of everyone, like a commoner. He will keep his magic very steady and very close.

Laufey’s son— Thor— takes his seat next to him, and the ceremony begins.

When Loki sits by his betrothed’s side, as they are read their vows to one another, he cannot help but think of a business transaction. It isn’t necessary for either of them to speak; everything is arranged for them, spoken aloud at them, agreed upon in their names. He feels Thor shift beside him, whether out of discomfort or boredom he cannot tell. There is nothing he can tell about this man, who he does not know. He clenches his fists until his knuckles turn white.

The priestess, Kara, is a kind woman, a friend of Loki’s late mother. Loki knows that she is trying her best to be soothing, and to keep her voice light in this impossible situation, which he does not want to be in. Though he tries not to he cannot help but wonder what his mother would say, if she were to see him now. Whether she would be proud of him for doing his duty as the only son of Asgard. Whether she would see him as his father’s son. Loki thinks of all the fairytales he grew up on, where the princes were dashing and valiant. Where they ran headfirst into danger, and made their own destinies. He thinks that these were poor stories to tell a real little prince, who would never be allowed such chances. 

And just like that— it ends. Kara takes their hands and binds them together with the ceremonial ribbon, and bestows the sacred blessings upon them. Everyone in the room stands, and begins to pile out of the room, unaware that they have just witnessed Loki’s most public heartbreak, the worst any man can ever feel: the loss of his freedom. 

The ribbon is just for show. Loki begins to untie it, feeling a little frantic, his hands suddenly too slick with sweat— just knotting it further, unable to find the right end to pull. He’s trapped and angry and horrified, next to this stranger who is more mountain than man, the room closing in on them both. 

“Stop,” Thor says, and he is so taken aback by the sound of his voice that he stops. No one has spoken to Loki all morning. He stops. Carefully, with the hand that is not bound, Thor undoes them from one another. It takes two pulls of the fabric. 

Then, he turns in his chair, facing Loki for the first time. His gaze is so intense that it bores right through him; Loki feels it burning his skin. Loki has been to Jotunheim before, not often, but he _has_ been. He knows what they are like— how foreign they must now seem to one another, sitting like this. Married. His sudden panic has not worn off; he cannot help but wonder how cruel this man must be, both in state affairs and over a dinner table. In bed. It seems unfair that years of study and obedience and preparation, preparation to be a _king_ , have led him here, to a man who can break his hand just by holding it. It _is_ unfair. Loki wants to scream; but more urgently than that, Loki wants to beg his sister for an annulment. 

He can feel the blood pounding in his ears, a rush of pulse and anxiety, when Thor does something that stops him again, for the second time in a few brief moments. 

“Hi,” the Jotun prince says. And he smiles. 

They lose one another shortly into the feast, which is so loud and so grand and filled with so much food and dancing that it almost feels as though there is something worth celebrating. Sif finds him, two pints of ale in her hand. Loki’s relief is almost a tangible thing— to see both her and a drink. He takes a deep pull from the glass and forces a smile. It looks more like a grimace.

“Oof,” Sif says, wincing. “Not your best look, Prince Loki.” 

Loki sighs, gives it up. “This entire day isn’t my best look.” 

“No,” Sif says slowly, “but… it could always get better, right?” 

“Your optimism is unparalleled, Sif. Asgard will be talking about it years after we are all dead.” 

“I’m doing it,” Sif says, pressing her fist lightly into Loki’s stomach, “for _your_ benefit.”

Loki shifts away, graceful like a dancer. He is feeling very dramatic, now that he’s safely in the company of one of the only people he loves. “Don’t. Not even my personal shieldmaiden can mend this situation.”

“I am _not_ your personal anything.”

“You certainly are. Sworn to protect me, and also to fall on your own sword should any ill come upon me as a result of your negligence, or if I should be bored and so choose it, and— _no_!” She pinches his side, then swiftly shoves a leg between both of his and pushes him against the wall, keeping him in place with her back and one, sturdy hip. Just to add insult to injury, Sif snatches his ale from his hands and begins drinking both pints at the same time. 

“ _Unhand me_ ,” Loki tries to shout, but she has already pushed her upper arm into his mouth. He could bite it. He considers biting it. She is _drinking his ale_ and she deserves a painful death. 

Before he can make the decision, and before he can struggle any further, and before Sif can finish off their drinks, a figure approaches them, and it shadows them both. Slowly, Sif pulls her arm out of Loki’s mouth, and stands up straight. Loki wipes at his face, stupidly, feeling like a child that’s just been caught shirking his studies to wrestle in the courtyard. 

“Am I interrupting something?” Thor asks, his expression unreadable. 

“Oh, uh,” Loki says, rather intelligently. “No. Just— no, nothing.” 

Thor nods, looking from Sif to Loki. 

“That’ll be my cue,” Sif says with a quick flash of a smile, and before Loki can say anything to stop her— walks away. Her form disappearing into the distance can only keep Loki’s attention for so long before it becomes rude, before he is forced to turn his attention to this man— Thor— his new husband. Loki looks at him, hoping he doesn’t give anything away either.

“Sif is my oldest friend,” he says, as though this explains their behavior. “She is my only friend,” he corrects then. “We grew up together.”

Thor nods again.

“So it isn’t— I mean, there is nothing. She is not even important to me.” Loki wants to put his face in his hands. He wants the castle floor to open up and swallow him whole, to save him from a lifetime of inevitable insanity, because that is obviously what is going on here, now. Why would he say that? Not only is it a lie, but it is so clearly a lie— something he is usually very good at— that it just makes him look like a blathering, lying idiot. He takes a very deep breath. “That isn’t true,” he tries again. “She is incredibly important to me.”

Thor’s expression does not change, but he tilts his head, ever so slightly. Most likely wondering why they gave him a husband with a broken brain. 

He doesn’t ask, however. “Do you want to dance?” is what he asks instead. 

“Dance,” Loki repeats. “With you?”

“They’re expecting it,” Thor says, gesturing behind him with a flick of his head. He takes Loki’s hand before he can respond, and brings him out into the middle of the feast hall, where men and women are clamoring all over one another with their drinks and with their prying, wanting hands. 

Most of them move out of the way when they see the two princes approaching, but some are too drunk already to notice, twirling one another until their heads spin. Thor stands with Loki in the center of it all. If he feels as out of place as he looks he does not show it, and when he puts a hand around Loki’s waist it is unexpectedly gentle. The musicians, who are in the middle of performing a lively tune about Odin’s early conquests, begin to play a slower love song from Alfheim. And Loki, who does not dance in public if he can help it, finds himself following Thor’s lead, when really— as the future King of Asgard— it should be the other way around. His displeasure must show on his face, because Thor frowns, although he does not let go, or give up. 

There isn’t much to do but dance, and because they are so close Loki is able to get a good look at Thor without making it obvious that that is exactly what he’s doing. He is tall enough that Loki has to keep his head tilted up to see his face, where his gaze is focused, immovable, on Loki. It has all the intensity and burn of looking into the sun, and none of the warmth. Still, it would be impossible to deny how handsome he is, this up close, or how strong he looks. There are two horns protruding from his forehead, decorated with one thin gold chain. Hooped earrings line both of his ears, dozens of them, and he is covered in markings and tattoos that Loki cannot decipher. His hand rests on one of Thor’s broad shoulders and he slips it down, just barely, just to feel the muscle on his chest. 

This is a man who has been built for war, Loki thinks, and who has then been married off to the realm he was meant to destroy. 

Before he can let himself feel the exact horror of his situation, however, a noise, a shout, and a sudden shift of position surprise him out of his own thoughts. A serving boy trips against one of the various drunk bodies standing around, losing his grip on the tray of tankards he’s holding. They clatter to the floor, right where Loki is standing before Thor whips him out of the way, closer against his chest. It’s so fast; Loki doesn’t realize what has happened until his face is pressed into Thor, and Thor’s hand is tight on the small of his back. And then it’s over. The tankards are cleared away, the ale is wiped off of the floor, and the people have gone back to their own conversations, their own lives. Thor lets him go and pulls back and that’s over, too. 

“No dancing, then,” he says, and he gives Loki his second smile of the day— both soft and tight, somehow. Like he’s holding something back. 

“I suppose not,” Loki says.

Thor leans in then, and tucks a single strand of hair behind Loki’s ear. He brushes his knuckles, so softly, along Loki’s cheekbone, his thumb across Loki’s lower lip. 

“I’ll see you tonight,” he says, and Loki doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until long after Thor has walked away from him. 

***

It is impossible to do anything besides dread the night. Luckily his sister has decided being married off to a stranger is enough work for one day, relieving him of his studies, duties, and strength training. Soon, Loki will be king. The date of his coronation seems to keep slipping away from him— first on the eve of his twenty-first birthday, then some time in the fall, then perhaps the spring. Hela says she wants it to be perfect and Loki wants so badly to believe her that he almost does. Regardless of his sister’s intentions Loki is confident in the throne, in his late father’s advisors and palace staff. The day will come whether Hela accepts it or not. 

While the celebrations continue, for what Loki cannot tell— it’s not as though either groom is happy to be there— he slips outside and into the gardens, which used to be his mother Frigga’s domain. They smell like her, and somewhere between the hydrangeas and the lemon trees he can almost sense her presence, so strong and so gentle it makes him want to cry. He doesn’t cry. 

He sits on a stone bench instead, and watches the peonies in the sun as inside the palace men and women toast to his joyful union. He sits there until the sky grows orange and pink, and then dark, and then darker, and he knows that it is time to go.

Although he knows (hopes) that one day all of Asgard will be his, for now the only place Loki finds a true sense of belonging are his own personal apartments. This new alliance, of course, changes all of that. He is barely halfway into loosening his hair from its braids that Thor barges in. It’s just like that. He barges. There are no guards to stop him, no palace security to ask his business with the young prince. No one has to _ask_ what Thor’s business is, with the young prince. The whole of the realm knows what is about to happen between them. 

Loki does not want to be in this room right now. He wants to be somewhere far outside of himself, on another realm, Midgard maybe, living a quiet evening and doing whatever nonsensical, unimportant things Midgardians do with their time. He looks at Thor, hands still in his hair, and lowers them slowly. Thor has put his fur back on, and Loki thinks he must be sweltering in the light summer heat. He has also, Loki notices, added more jewelry: gold rings around his arms and fingers, strings of gold hanging off of his neck. As though they will not just be a further nuisance, when Loki has to take them off of him, one by one. Loki stands up from where he is sitting at his mirror, and he meets Thor halfway into the room. The door has already been shut behind them. 

Neither of them speak. It isn’t until Thor bats Loki’s hands away from where they’re trying to undo the collar at his own throat that Loki realizes they’re shaking. Thor undoes it for him, and his cape falls away. Another man might have requested Loki be ready when he arrived, but Thor has decided to spare him this particular humiliation at least. Thor is wearing little enough as it is; his feet are already bare. He brushes Loki’s hair back and assesses his surcoat for a moment— something they clearly do not have on Jotunheim— before yanking it up and over Loki’s head. It takes everything in him not to scream. 

But when Thor puts his hands on Loki’s tunic, under it, his cold hands on Loki’s skin, Loki can’t help but flinch away from the touch. Thor pauses, pulling away just a tiny bit. He balls his hands into fists, unclenches them, and balls them again.

“Sorry,” he says. It’s the first thing either of them have said yet, and it feels appropriate, somehow. Loki chokes back a bitter laugh. “I’m sure I am colder than you’re used to.”

“Just get on with it,” Loki mumbles, and he is so clearly miserable that Thor stops what he’s doing completely.

“What’s wrong?” Thor asks.

Loki looks at him, trying to rearrange the venom in his eyes into something kinder, and, failing that, ripping his tunic off over his head. His hands betray him for the second— the millionth— time that day, and he fumbles at his pants. Thor takes them, and pulls them away.

“Stop,” he says.

“ _What_ ,” Loki says.

“You have no desire to do this.”

“Of _course_ I have no desire to do this, you idiot,” Loki hisses, unable to control the anger in his voice any longer. “We don’t _know_ one another, I hadn’t even heard of this arrangement until yesterday, and you are twice the size of me.” 

Thor takes a full step back. He frowns. “That isn’t fair,” he finally says. “I am at least three times the size of you.” 

Loki does laugh, now, a haggard, grating thing, and there is no humor in it. Before he’s finished, Thor is picking up his clothes; he is handing them back to Loki. Loki frowns at the surcoat in his hands, as if it’s just materialized from nothing. He frowns at Thor, too, who has taken a seat at the foot of his bed, and is now surveying the room as though it’s of any interest to him. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Did you think I would force myself on you?”

“It,” Loki says, taking a breath, “is our wedding night.” 

“Really?” Thor asks. “Is that what that little ceremony this morning was about?”

Loki crosses his arms.

“Your chambers are nice,” Thor continues. “A bit bland— but tidy.”

The assessment isn’t false, but it irks Loki nevertheless. In another life, he would have books strewn about the place, fine art hung on the walls. In this life, he is confined to appearing as respectable and bland as possible— giving nothing of himself away to prying attendants who may later turn treacherous. It is a sobering, paranoid way to live. The king had grown sober and paranoid in the wake of Frigga’s death, and Hela has made no attempt to change the palace’s atmosphere in her haphazard rule.

“And I’m sure you’ve decorated yours vibrantly with the staked heads of your enemies,” Loki says. 

Thor’s expression changes; his brows furrow slightly. “Why would I keep rotting corpses where I sleep?”

It’s such a simple, logical question that it nearly takes Loki aback. He makes himself scowl. “What should I know of what you do?” he asks. He knows how impolite he is being, and he doesn’t care. He is so young. His whole life has been thrown away to this man.

“I would not,” Thor says, with a casual shrug. “I might keep them under _your_ bed, however, as a little surprise.” 

Loki rolls his eyes. For the first time all day he feels more indignant than anxious. He would never admit it out loud, but whatever this is is a welcome distraction. Thor scoots himself backward on the bed and begins fluffing the pillows behind him, so he can recline and watch Loki at once. “ _What_ are you doing?” Loki asks again.

“It’s our wedding night,” Thor says, echoing Loki’s words back to him, as if they mean something. As if they mean “time to get comfortable in a stranger’s bed.” 

Loki frowns. “This is expected of us.” 

“Do you always do what’s expected, Prince Loki?”

“Don’t use my title to condescend me.”

“I am using your title,” Thor says, slowly, sitting up now, “as a sign of respect.” 

Loki frowns, feeling pathetic, in way over his head. 

“Shall I leave?”

“No,” Loki says, quickly. “It will upset my sister if we don’t do this.” 

“You tell your sister what happens in between your sheets?”

“ _No_ ,” Loki says. “But she is the Queen Regent and we are to consummate this marriage that she has so thoughtfully arranged. The guards will know if you leave so soon, and they will tell her I was unable to please you.” 

Thor barks out a laugh at that, his knees bent before him, forearms resting casually on them. He looks like a man who has never had a worry in his life, and Loki envies and admires and resents him for it.

“What do you want to do, then, little prince?”

“You will have to stay here all night,” Loki says. He sounds determined; it makes Thor smile.

“I will stay here all night.” 

“You may sleep on the floor.”

Thor barks another laugh at that, and shakes his head very slowly, looking amused. “I will not sleep on the floor,” he says. 

“It was worth a try.” 

“Yes, very commendable of you. Come lie down next to me and relax. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have already.” 

For a moment, Loki looks at the Jotun prince, who has clearly decided to underestimate him. Coming from his father and his sister, from his attendants and the people he will one day rule, it aggravates him, to be consistently and faithlessly misjudged. It is a poison that crawls through the ground and into his veins. From Thor, however, it’s a welcome weakness. 

“Very well,” Loki says, and shifts his clothes into loose sleepwear instead. 

“That’s a nice trick.” 

“That is all it is,” he says, and turns all the lights out. Now it truly feels like they are alone, in the glow of the moonlight. 

Thor smiles again. He isn’t that much older than Loki is, and it makes him more handsome than Loki would care to admit, as he flips the bedspread down, and crawls underneath it. Thor, he notices, maintains his position on top of the covers.

“Is it too warm for you?” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. He does not care, either way, if it’s too warm for this stranger. 

“No,” Thor says, and he looks at Loki with that imperceptible gaze for a moment too long. Then just as abruptly, he rolls over so that his back is to Loki. 

“Goodnight,” he says, and leaves Loki to his tangled thoughts.

***

When Loki wakes, the Jotun prince is gone.

He takes his breakfast alone, as he often does, and feels slightly unsettled when his sister pays him a morning visit. Normally, she summons him. Today she is dressed in their customary black and green— one of the few similarities they share— and her eyes seem to glow in the fresh sunlight. She is the type of beautiful that neither men nor women can seem to look away from, as though bottling her with their eyes. No one can hold her though— not her beauty nor her insatiable wickedness. Loki wonders how anyone could ever think they could. 

“Hello, brother,” she says, with her tiger-smile. Two guards flank her, one on each side, at all times. Even when she is paying her little brother a visit. 

Loki stands. “Hello.”

“I assume your night went well.” 

“It went well,” Loki says.

“And you’ve pleased the Jotun beast?”

There’s a pause. Loki lets her think it’s because he’s embarrassed. “It went well,” he repeats.

“Good. Laufey and his retinue have left; I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear he had no interest in bidding his new son-in-law farewell.” 

“I— ” What could he possibly say here? “I have no opinion on the subject either way.” 

Hela laughs at that. It’s an ugly sound. “I just thought you’d like to know. I’ll be occupied with the people and their many grievances today,” she says, yawning. “I suggest you keep your husband away from the Great Hall, lest he scares them all away. Although,” she says, with the slightest tilt of her head, “that might not be such a bad thing. I’ll find you if I need you.” 

“Don’t you think the people should get to know us?”

“‘Us?’ Who is ‘ _us_ ’?”

“Thor and I,” Loki says. 

Hela raises an eyebrow. Something flickers in her expression that Loki recognizes— a fleeting thought, an exchange, the formation of a lie. She smiles again. “There will be plenty of time for that, later. Now, the people expect you to be enjoying one another’s company. You ought to embrace it, Loki. You never know when you’ll have the chance to again.” 

The words could have been kind. Loki is intelligent enough to know that they are a threat. 

He finds himself in his mother’s garden again, because he doesn’t know where else there is for him to go. He walks into the innermost part, past the hedges and the peonies, toward the orchard where the oranges grow. There is a clearing there where he likes to sit and read, and it is always empty because there is no one else in the palace who ever seems to sit, to read. Until today. Loki turns the corner and he stops in his tracks. Thor is already there; he’s lying in the shade of the tree, a book in his hand. He looks as at ease as ever, his golden hair shining in the sunlight. It would be better to turn around now, to go back the way he came. But Loki is nothing if not curious, and he wants to know at least the name of the book Thor has stolen from their library. He cranes his head and wills his eyes to see better, and by his own stubborn idiocy he is caught in Thor’s gaze. 

“Hi,” his husband calls out with a lazy wave.

“Hello,” Loki answers. He has no choice but to continue forward. “What’s that?” he asks once he reaches Thor, gesturing at the book.

“ _A History of Asgard, Part 1_ ,” Thor says. “Did you know there are five volumes to this?”

“Yes.”

“Are they all equally boring?”

“Asgardian history is fascinating to most other cultures,” Loki sniffs. 

“Which part of it? The pillaging and conquering, described here as… ‘artful discovery?’ Or the conquering and pillaging under the guise of diplomacy and aid?”

Loki bristles. He loves Asgard more than he loves anything else in the nine realms— more than he loves himself, probably. Maybe. “And what does Jotunheim call _their_ pillaging and conquering?” 

“Pillaging and conquering,” Thor says, with a one-shouldered shrug. “We are honest.” 

“Well perhaps that is why yours is a lesser realm.” 

Thor laughs at that. Loki realizes he had not expected the Jotun prince to have a sense of humor; he is nearly impossible to offend. Loki envies that, too. 

“Why are you reading that, anyway?” he asks.

“I thought I’d learn about my new home.”

“They didn’t teach you anything on Jotunheim?”

“They did,” Thor says, closing the book and setting it down. “But history is often different, depending on who you ask. I’m sure what you’ve learned about Jotunheim and what I’ve experienced firsthand will not overlap too much.”

Loki frowns. He had not expected the Jotun prince to be insightful, either. 

“Will you sit?” Thor asks. 

Loki sits. 

“Will you tell me about yourself?” Thor asks. 

“What would you know?”

Thor gives him a sly, sidelong smile. “They say you’re a witch.” 

“I’m not.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Thor says. “I would have liked to be married to a powerful witch.”

“No one wants to marry a witch, Thor.” 

“I do.” Thor leans back against the tree, closing his eyes. It gives Loki the opportunity to study the curve of his face and his strong features, his jawline and his smooth brow. Thor is not so much older than him, he realizes. Half a century, or so. “We could fly out of here and make our own lives. We could be whoever we wanted to be.”

“Witches don’t _fly_ ,” Loki says, as if this is the most absurd thing he’s ever heard. And then— “You want to leave?”

Thor opens one eye, looks up at him. “I meant no offense, little prince. Your garden is very beautiful.” 

“It was my mother’s.”

Thor smiles at that. There are wildflowers growing all around him, white and purple and buttercup yellow to match his hair. He plucks one of them now, and leans in, and tucks it behind Loki’s ear. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen on Asgard, apart from you.” Loki, to his horror, blushes. He turns his attention very quickly to plucking a blade of grass from the earth.

“You’re a prince,” he says to the ground. “What else would you rather be?”

“I’d rather be my own man, first.”

“But are you not?”

“What do you think, Loki?” Thor sits up, turns to face him fully. He’s like a painting. “I was brought here, to a realm I do not know, to marry a man I do not love, to ostensibly have some hand in ruling Asgard, someday. Do you think I was given a choice in the matter? What if there were someone in Jotunheim who held my heart?”

The hint of jealousy Loki feels— one, small shard of glass— makes no sense to him. This man is a stranger. 

But he is his husband now, too. He is the only thing Loki can call his own. 

“Was there?” Loki asks, carefully. 

“No.”

Relief. Loki hates himself for it. 

“I can’t,” Loki begins, then stops. “Even if I were a witch— that isn’t the type of magic I can do.”

“What is, then?”

And because Thor’s voice does not hold any of the condescension of his sister’s, or any of the fear of the palace guard’s, Loki decides to show him. Tentatively, he takes one of Thor’s hands with both of his own, smaller ones, and pulls it toward him, palm up. He concentrates, and in the air between them emerges a perfectly shaped crystal, made of ice, and emitting a faint, blue glow. It levitates right above the center of Thor’s palm, spinning on its axis ever so slowly. Its atmosphere is cold; they can both feel the temperature radiating off of it. 

Thor watches, and to Loki’s pleasure he looks genuinely mystified. 

“I hope it makes you feel less homesick,” Loki says. 

Thor meets his eyes. It’s so open and honest that Loki almost looks away— almost.

“Thank you,” he says. And then: “I should go.”

“So soon?” Loki asks, as lightly as possible. 

“The Queen Regent’s man has asked me to meet with him.”

Loki keeps his expression neutral. “Skurge?”

“What a name,” Thor says. “Yes.”

“Did he say why?”

“No,” Thor says, but he looks like he wants to say something else. Loki doesn’t know him well enough yet to know whether this is a bad thing. It often is. He tries not to think about it too much.

“He’s unpleasant, but not very smart. If he insults you, it most likely isn’t even on purpose, but I can assure you that any pleasure you receive in his company will be unintentional.”

“Nothing a man like that says can insult me, Prince Loki.” 

“Very well.” 

Thor smiles. “I’ll see you tonight,” he says. 

He is true to his word, at least. Loki learns this about him first, so it is almost poetic that he will unlearn it first, too. But that comes later. For now, he is just starting to notice things about his husband and committing them to memory, as though they’ll shrink away if he doesn’t. They spend night after night with one another, never touching, never even acknowledging the expectations and requirements of their marriage. They talk, tentatively at first— superficially— about their childhoods and their families, about their studies and their knowledge of one another’s cultures. These hours pass like lessons; Loki could categorize them as character studies— _could_ , if he could view Thor as an object, in a vacuum, under a clinical light. 

He finds he cannot, however. There is nothing objective about the quiet way Thor looks at him when he’s speaking, as though his words hold weight when they never have before. Loki has never been looked at so intensely in such a short period of time. Loki has never been _looked_ at. Their talk turns more personal, as the nights drift on. Soon enough Loki even begins to look forward to them, to see Thor and feel his weight next to him, so grounded and steady. His calm is impenetrable, seems so impossible to Loki, who has felt storms raging within him for years. Loki learns that Thor prefers peaches to apples, that the three rings he wears on his fingers represent his family, that he admires the Asgardian Valkyrie more than anyone else. Loki learns that his nose crinkles when he laughs.

They sleep, side-by-side, with Thor on top of the covers and Loki underneath them. Thor is always gone in the morning, long before Loki wakes. He does not know where he goes.

One night, he decides to find out. Because Loki is an inherently roundabout creature, and because no one has ever deemed it necessary to tell him the truth before, he does not ask. Instead he stays awake, long after Thor falls asleep, his breath slowing. Loki tries not to look at him too much and as the sun is beginning to dawn in the morning he closes his eyes and bites the inside of his cheeks to keep from falling asleep. Thor leaves the room, and Loki slips out behind him, fifteen paces away. 

It’s easy for him to stay undetected. He’s been doing this for most of his life— learning how to disappear into the background— and Thor is too preoccupied, too forward-thinking, to notice. He follows Thor down a long corridor, around a bend. He follows him up a set of stone stairs and through a bridge connecting the household’s personal apartments to the rest of the palace. He follows him to the most northeastern part of the castle, all the way up to the top of a turret. 

Loki knows this spot well; there are only three others like it on all of Asgard. From here, you can see the sun rising over the city, and the sea beyond it. 

He thinks he’s been quiet and careful enough to go undetected, and he’s planning on leaving as soon as he catches his breath. He does not expect Thor’s voice, clear against the morning light.

“Good morning, little prince.”

“Good morning,” Loki says, caught.

Thor turns toward him, haloed in the sun. “Did I wake you?” He says it mildly, as though unaware of what has actually happened. 

“No,” Loki says, and moves to stand next to him. “Do you come here every morning?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to love it,” Thor says, and Loki knows that he means not only Asgard, but this new life. 

“Did you love Jotunheim?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” Loki says then, surprising himself. He is not often sorry. The corner’s of Thor’s mouth turn down, just slightly. “I would hate to leave Asgard. I would hate to be forced to leave everything I know and love. I’m sorry if… I haven’t made this situation easier on you.” 

Maybe it’s an effect of the sun shining down on them, or the view so grand and clear— this realm Loki loves more than anything, would weather all the days and ridicule of his sister for. Or maybe it’s something else— the way Thor frowns as though he is thinking too much, the way Loki sees him clearly for the first time, a man alone, the way they are too close and too far apart all at once. Whatever it is, it makes Loki reach for Thor’s hands, and hold them in his. 

“We are bound to one another, now,” Loki says. “I hope these past few weeks have at least proven to you that I can be a friend, if nothing more.” 

“Loki,” Thor says, and he looks so troubled Loki reaches up, and touches his hair. 

“You have no reason to trust me, I know,” Loki continues. “But I— ”

“Stop,” Thor says. It comes out too sharp, too rushed somehow. “I trust you.” He lets go of Loki’s hand, turns toward the cityscape again. Maybe it’s easier to look at faraway buildings than it is to look at his husband.

“I’ve said the wrong thing, somehow.”

“No.”

“Don’t worry,” Loki laughs, bitterly. “I do it all the time.”

“ _No_ ,” Thor says again, and takes one step toward Loki, and takes his face in his hands, and kisses him. 

It’s so quick Loki expects it to be hard, bone-crushing. It isn’t. Thor’s touch is as gentle as ever. Their lips barely brush, too chaste to bear, and then it’s over before Loki has time to process that it’s even happening. It frustrates him. He deserves a better kiss than that. Thor is still holding his face, looking at him with his impenetrable eyes, and Loki closes the gap between them before he can think twice about it. 

This time, they keep one another in place. Thor’s lips are soft and Loki’s mouth is warm and it is better than either of them imagined. It’s disappointing, then, when they pull back, and Thor pulls further away from Loki, does not look him in the eyes. Loki did not think he was so sensitive. It makes him unhappy to discover that he is, and that such things can affect him. They have not known one another for the better part of a year. They barely know one another at all. Whatever it is that Loki feels now is just an illusion, some hopeful trick of the light. 

“I must go,” Thor says.

“What is it now? You are always leaving me behind.” 

Thor looks at him, surprised, and Loki looks surprised himself to have even said it. “Nevermind,” Loki says, “it’s none of my business.” 

“It is,” Thor says. “But I ask you not to question me anyway.” 

Loki looks at him for a moment, rewinding their morning in his mind. He exhales in a puff, feeling stupid and incredulous for seeing something where nothing exists. 

“How do you expect me to trust you, if you tell me nothing at all?” 

“I don’t,” Thor says, “and you shouldn’t.”

“What?”

Thor sighs. He is beautiful, though Loki hates to admit it. He knows now that this man, this foreign prince, will never feel anything for him. He knows how stupid it was of him to think otherwise. 

“You shouldn’t trust anyone, little prince. Not in this palace. Least of all me.” 

“You’re my husband,” Loki says. He knows how naive, how small he must sound. He tries not to focus on the perception of himself, but rather the existence of Thor, his husband.

“Yes,” Thor says. “I’m sorry for that. It was not my choice.”

Something in Loki freezes, and it is colder than the entirety of this Jotun stranger. “I see,” he says. “In that case, you may feel free to remain in your own chambers tonight. My sister and everyone else on Asgard assumes we’ve consummated this arrangement, so there is really no reason to keep up the charade that we like one another.” 

“Loki,” Thor says, but before he can say anything else, Loki turns on his heel, and is gone. 

***

There is no reason to be so sad, Loki knows. His husband is only a man, and Loki himself is to be King of Asgard, which is worth more to him than the love or respect or commitment of any man. Still. There is a wall of ice around his heart, and it grows and it grows. Thor does not visit him that night, nor the next night. Thor’s absence stretches; it covers weeks, and though Loki sees him around the palace and during feasts, they do not speak unless they are within earshot of Hela or her henchmen. 

One day Loki is in the library when he turns a corner and walks straight into Thor, browsing the stacks. _King of Asgard_ , he reminds himself, and does not flinch away. 

“Still reading that?” Loki asks, nodding at the copy of _A History of Asgard, Part 3_ in Thor’s hands. 

“There isn’t much else to do,” Thor says, with a shrug. “I have no friends, and my husband won’t speak to me.”

“I wonder why. You’re so naturally pleasant.”

“Prince Loki.”

“Have you tried telling any potential friends it isn’t your choice to be here?”

Thor sighs, setting the book down. 

“Or perhaps,” Loki continues, getting into his stride now, “you need to spend weeks getting to know them first, before you— ” He’s cut off by Thor pushing him into the bookcase, and kissing him hard. The book Thor is holding falls out of his hands, and he pin Loki’s wrists to the shelf hard enough to bruise, and Loki is so taken aback by the taste of Thor’s tongue in his mouth that he lets out a moan before he can stop himself. It’s the most passionate Thor has been with him yet and it’s exhilarating enough that his mind goes blank. 

When Thor pulls away, it’s awful— worse than the morning on the turret. Loki’s entire body wants him back. 

“I missed,” Thor says, his hands still on Loki’s wrists, his breath against Loki’s cheek, “your scent.” 

Loki pulls his arms out of Thor’s grip, and holds Thor by the chin, tightly. “Then why,” he says, his nails digging in, “did you walk away from me?”

To his surprise, Thor doesn’t pull further away. He could easily overpower Loki, if he wanted to. He doesn’t. 

“You walked away,” he says, instead.

“No,” Loki says. And then: “You forced me to.”

“How, little prince?”

Loki lets out a breath, and lets Thor go. He pushes past him and leans back against the opposite bookshelf, arms crossed. It doesn’t change his perspective much; Thor still towers over him. 

“You made it incredibly clear that you had no intention of maintaining a relationship with me. Fine. That’s fine, Thor, I don’t particularly _need_ you. But you could have done that from the get-go. You did not need to lie in my bed with me, night after night, and tell me about yourself, and ask me questions about my life. You did not need to pretend to be _interested_ , when you clearly weren’t. And you did not need to do— ” he pauses, sweeping his hands into the air between them, “— whatever it is you’re doing here.” 

A long moment passes, where neither of them speak. Loki feels his anger whittle into uncertainty.

“I wanted to check out a book,” Thor says, picking _A History of Asgard, Part 3_ back up. “That’s all.” 

“What is _the matter_ with you? Is your dumb Jotun brain broken?” 

“No,” Thor says.

“Then?”

“Let me back into your bed.”

“Did you listen to anything I just said?” 

“I listened,” Thor says, taking a step closer to Loki. He looks at him with some dark Jotun magic; it makes Loki forget every thought he’s ever had. 

“You don’t need my permission,” Loki says, straightening his spine, trying to seem taller than he really is. “It’s well within your rights to come and go and do as you please.”

“I won’t do that.” 

“Fine,” Loki sighs, as if this conversation is suddenly beneath him. “I don’t care what you do. Come, if you like. It makes absolutely no difference to me either way.”

“It sounds as though you do care, Prince Loki.” 

Loki’s eyes narrow; he is sick of this man, who does not know him at all. This man, who is too close to him, again, who touches his hand once, who walks away from him. Again. 

Loki’s hand burns where Thor has touched him. 

***

That night, Loki paces his room, two glasses of wine in and unable to sit still. He thinks that if he has to wait longer than fifteen minutes, he will march over to Thor’s rooms himself, and demand some sort of explanation. He will take him by the shoulders, no matter how much taller the Jotun man stands, and shake him until he speaks more than four-word sentences. 

It turns out that he does not have to do either of those things. 

Thor walks in as he is mid-pace, half-naked and without ceremony, like the first time and like every time after. Instead of speaking any of the furious thoughts he’s been brewing in his mind, Loki meets him in the middle of the room, plants both hands on his enormous chest, and kisses him. 

“Wait,” Thor says, pulling away.

“No,” Loki says, pulling him back, kissing him again. This time Thor grips his waist, and kisses him back. “We’ve waited enough.”

“I think we should wait a little longer.”

“I think,” Loki says, viciously, shoving Thor back toward the bed, and then onto it, “we should take our clothes off.”

“You’ve already fallen behind,” Thor says, nodding at Loki, who is covered from wrist to ankle. Like the first night, he makes himself comfortable, lying back, arms crossed behind his head. “I’m better than you at everything.” 

“You are a boorish Jotun monster,” Loki says, unbuttoning at his sleeves. He kicks off his boots. 

“Is that really what you think of me?”

When Loki looks up again, the inscrutability in Thor’s expression is back. It sits between them like a weight. Loki frowns.

“No,” he says, shucking off his shirt, “it isn’t.” 

“What is?” 

“We can talk later,” Loki says, pulling his pants off and crawling onto the bed. “Now I am ahead of you.” 

Thor takes him by the wrist, and pulls him closer. “We should talk now,” he says, but his mouth is already so close, and it’s the only thing Loki can even process anymore. He closes the space between them before Thor can say another word, and to Loki’s relief, Thor doesn’t protest or pull away. He only kisses him harder, and he pulls him into his lap. 

“Are you sure?” Thor asks.

“Take off your stupid pants,” Loki says, and Thor obeys him wordlessly. In all of Loki’s relatively short, yet undoubtedly profound, life, he has never considered the possibility of ordering around a Jotun prince. He finds that he likes it. 

They touch as if there’s a thin pane of glass between them, their kisses tentative and aching and light, fingers ghosting against the outlines of each other’s bodies. Loki wants more but he doesn’t know how to ask for it yet, not when they’re this close, not when he feels like Thor’s body underneath him could move realms. He cups Thor’s face in his hands and he looks at him.

“I want our marriage to work,” he says.

Thor leans forward, and he licks at Loki’s lips. Loki presses back, and he bites at Thor’s. His grip on his face tightens and then they’re kissing without coming up for air at all, the glass sheet between them vanished. Loki’s trysts have been far and few between, and they have never felt like this. Important. Agonizing. 

“Oil,” Loki mumbles against Thor’s lips, blindly fumbling around the bedside drawer. 

Thor doesn’t respond. In his infuriatingly calm, patient way, he takes hold of Loki’s hand, and reaches toward the drawer to look for himself. When he locates the vial, he presses another kiss to Loki’s mouth, and then the palm of his hand. When he slips a finger inside of Loki, he kisses the bridge of his nose, and between his eyebrows. When he slips in another, and crooks them just right, Loki arches his back, gasping Thor’s name. 

“Do that again,” he demands. Thor laughs. 

This is how it goes between them: Thor acting, Loki demanding more, and Thor laughing, kissing Loki’s face. He is far more affectionate than a Jotun should be, but then again— Loki hasn’t really had this kind of experience with a Jotun before. It’s the first time he realizes _how_ it could be: when Thor kisses the space between his nose and his mouth, when he gently maneuvers them around so that he can be on top, when he pushes the covers off so that they can see one another. Thor isn’t the callous brute Loki conjured up at first sight, and he wonders what Thor must think of him, too, now. 

They leave the windows open, the curtains billowing in the sweet summer air. When Thor finally slips inside of him he pulls Loki’s face closer and kisses him deeper. It’s more than just fucking. It unhinges something deep inside of Loki that has been wound up so tightly for so long that he’s forgotten it even existed in the first place. It’s the thing that has made him feel small and unworthy his whole life; the thing gifted him by his family. But when Thor thrusts into him— he says his name, and he calls him beautiful, and Loki feels neither small nor unworthy. He claws at Thor’s back and feels like a king.

They finish together, with their mouths and their hands on one another. Thor kisses his forehead and his eyelids, and when he pulls out, Loki misses the weight and fill of him immediately. 

“Not bad,” Loki says, after he catches his breath.

Thor laughs. “Not bad for a boorish Jotun monster?”

“Not bad,” Loki says, “for my boorish Jotun husband.” And kisses him. 

“Loki,” Thor says, and he sighs in such a way that Loki knows something he isn’t ready for is coming. Like an ending. 

“What?”

“Don’t overreact when I tell you this.”

Loki turns to his side, propped up on one shoulder. Thor is looking at the ceiling, not at him. What Loki has learned about his husband over the past few months is that he rarely finds an occasion to avoid eye contact. Now, together in bed, having just untwined from one another, Loki cannot think of what would cause such blatant evasion. He sounds braver than he feels when he says: “I’m listening.”

“I’m here to kill you,” Thor says. 

Because there is no inflection in his tone whatsoever, it takes a moment for Thor’s words to sink in. When they do, it’s like a punch in the face. It’s like the floor underneath him slips away. Loki sits up, immediately, two daggers materializing in his hands.

“ _What_?”

Thor sits up as well, giving the weapons a cursory glance, apparently unconcerned with them. “Those aren’t necessary,” he says. 

“I must have heard you incorrectly, then.” 

“No, you— ”

Loki is on him in an instant, his forearm crushing into Thor’s chest and a dagger pointed at his throat. Thor makes no move to struggle, though Loki is aware he probably could. What Thor lacks in a weapon he makes up for with his own body. Loki touches the tip to Thor’s throat, a hair’s breadth away from drawing blood.

“I could have,” Thor says, looking Loki in the eye, “a thousand times over. You sleep like the dead.”

“Why didn’t you?” His eyes narrow. “Don’t tell me it was _affection_.” 

“No,” Thor answers, and despite what Loki has just said, he feels jilted and hurt. “Affection is not strong enough a word for what I feel for you.”

“I take it back,” Loki hisses. “You _are_ a monster.”

“Maybe,” Thor says, finding Loki’s wrist, wrapping his hand around it. “But I’m yours.”

Loki makes a noise that sounds choked and condescending; and he sits up, removing his weight from Thor’s chest. Thor follows suit, sitting up, his arms loosely wrapped around Loki’s hips. This time, it’s Loki who can’t make eye contact. They sit like that, for a moment— Loki taking the time to process his wretched thoughts and Thor waiting patiently, in silence. When they look at each other again, Loki’s expression is a mixture of rage and pain. 

“My sister,” he says.

Thor nods. “And my father.”

“Hela already has full control of the throne. Why would she get rid of me and keep you?”

“She would not,” Thor says, with a laugh. 

“Explain yourself, Thor, or I promise you, I may not kill you right here and now, but I will cut off something you would sorely miss.” 

“My father and your sister came to an agreement. I would marry you and then kill you, leaving Hela the sole heir to the throne. Hela promised my father I would have a seat on her council as repayment, which she claims is a far more lucrative role than a seat at _your_ side. But,” Thor says, and stops.

“But what?”

“But you and I both know that isn’t how this would go. I would kill you and she would throw me in a dungeon. Or I would kill you and my father would have me kill her next. Either way, either Hela or Laufey gain full control of Asgard.”

“If she imprisoned you, your father would retaliate,” Loki points out.

“Maybe. If she imprisoned me, maybe, he would summon the full force of Jotunheim, and come here, and declare war. Maybe he would release me from the dungeons and put me on the throne. I would be King of Asgard then, little prince.”

Loki’s eyes flash in anger. He realizes he has been clutching at the bedsheets, knuckles turning white. 

“And that is what you want, isn’t it.”

“No,” Thor says.

“Then?”

“I told you before. I want to be my own man.”

“What does that even mean?” Loki asks with a sneer. 

“It means I am sick of being told to eat, shit, and kill where they ask me to,” Thor says, pushing Loki off of him easily. He stands, off of the bed, apparently unconcerned with covering himself. 

“I’m not finished with you,” Loki says.

“I didn’t think so.”

“So sit back down.”

“Careful,” Thor says, quietly, something threatening in his tone. They are in dangerous territory now— even more than during Thor’s confession, the dagger planted so gently against his throat. Two princes perched on the precipice of their power, waiting to see who cracks first. Two threats, made ugly in new light.

“What,” Loki says, laughing, incredulous, “ _now_ you have boundaries?” 

In a stroke of madness, he stands too, though Thor towers over him and his head feels dizzy with the weight of treason, of betrayal, of heartbreak. He gets in Thor’s face, rage evident, a flagon of ancient magic concentrated in his slim body. “ _Now_ you decide to talk back? To resist me? To _have an opinion_? When I can still feel you inside of me— your hands and your mouth all over me— I should have cut them off when I had the chance. _Now_ you stand there as if you’re a big man— who can suddenly come and go and talk down to me as he pleases?”

Thor watches him as he rants, the same imperceptible look on his face as the day they met and married. As the day they danced. 

“I don’t know what possessed me,” Loki continues, “to think it could work with you. How stupid I am. How utterly boring you are.”

“Are you finished?” 

Loki crosses his arms in response. Thor takes one step forward, and uncrosses them for him. “You _are_ stupid,” he says, honestly. “And I’m in love with you.”

There’s silence between them. And then— “No,” Loki says, turning his face away.

“Yes.”

“You’ll say anything to get my guard down.”

“Your guard was already down, you beautiful idiot,” Thor says, not without some exasperation. “What kind of lunatic tells someone they’re going to kill them before they do it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Loki says, tentatively turning his gaze back to Thor’s, “what sort of lunatics you breed on Jotunheim.” 

He’s frowning, and he lets Thor kiss his mouth softly. He is instantly infuriated by the way his body reacts, how it seems to melt into him. “I do not love you,” he murmurs against Thor’s mouth, but the lie is half hearted, and they both know it. “I do not want this,” he says, as Thor walks him backwards, back to the bed, gripping the length of him in between them. When Thor lays them down, he’s hard again. 

“Tell me to stop,” Thor says.

“No,” Loki says.

“Tell me again that you don’t want this, and I will walk out of here now.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“No, you will not leave.”

“Why not, Loki?” 

“Because I want this,” Loki says, reaching up to kiss him. “Because I love you.”

***

They make a plan. It isn’t easy. Hela’s supporters are created from fear and greed rather than respect, and they lurk in dark corners of the palace unseen. Thor proposes setting the whole place alight and making their escape but Loki is still too in love with his realm to turn his back on it that easily. Thor is enough in love with Loki to accept his wishes and to stay. 

It takes weeks to work behind his sister’s back, but little by little, Loki is able to convince the attendants and councilmen alike that he has their best interests at heart. That he has Asgard’s best interests at heart. It doesn’t take much effort at all, because Loki has always been good with words, and because he is telling the truth. 

When Thor finally does kill one of Odin’s children, it is the elder, not the younger. It is without ceremony but a pledge of loyalty and love nevertheless. Loki watches him in silence, across the throne room; he watches the blood drip off of his husband’s hands. He loves him. Loves him. 

They rebuild Frigga’s throne so that both seats are equal in height and stature. They begin to mend their tentative relationship with Jotunheim, which is made easier with the ascension of Thor’s elder brother— who is more thoughtful and less callous than Laufey. They spend late nights in each other’s arms, talking and fucking and planning, twin kings on the precipice of a better future.

They plant more flowers in the garden. 

And when Loki, King of Asgard, sits beside his husband in the Great Hall, and sees the light reflected in his face, he sees forever, too.


End file.
